


Where We Belong

by DoreyG



Category: Wallander Series - Henning Mankell
Genre: Awkward car conversations, But main pairing is totally requited, First Kiss, Kissing, M/M, Neglected coffee, mentions of unrequited love, start of relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-09
Packaged: 2018-02-16 18:20:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2279964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Kalle," Magnus manages eventually, so quietly that he'd have to strain his ears to listen if he wasn't already entirely fixed on the sudden charge of the air in between them "...Can I ask you something?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where We Belong

It's the middle of the night. In a cop car, on a desolate stretch of road. Only the two of them, sat out in the middle of nowhere - comfortable silence reigning, lukewarm coffee cups clutched in their hands.

It's Magnus that makes the first move, of course, "Kalle?"

He's been half asleep, only managing to cling onto his lukewarm coffee by his fingernails. At Magnus' timely intervention he starts a little, straightens up quickly, just barely manages to right his hand before the coffee goes splattering all over the floor of the car, "mmmf?"

Magnus just chuckles at him. He has a nice laugh, does Magnus - it makes his eyes brighten and his hair glow and the world around him go... All kind of fizzy, "are you alright?"

"Yes" ...And he's still waking up, from his half slumped state with the coffee cup still miraculously clutched, so he's going to blame the disobedient flutterings of his brain on that and leave it be, "nah, I'm fine. Just a bit tired."

"Mm," Magnus agrees, still somehow managing to look like a model in a painting (an Adonis, he thinks the term is from his limited dealings with Greek mythology) despite _apparently_ being the same level of bleary as him, "to be honest I don't think they're going to turn up tonight."

"It was a long shot," it's just not _fair_. He takes a slightly sulky sip of coffee, gags at the lukewarm ( _cold_ by now) slide of it down his throat and quickly tries to put it behind him, "but worth a go. At least nobody can - _mm_ \- accuse us of not trying our best."

"Your naïveté over the logical prowess of Björk will never fail to amuse me," Magnus teases; looking unaccountably cheerful over his sudden, irrepressible yawn "...You really are tired, aren't you?"

"Didn't I just say that?" He grumbles, sinking low in his seat to ward against the red spreading quickly across his face.

"Yes, but I wasn't expecting you to progress to adorable yawns so quickly," Magnus chuckles again- stops dead, goes suddenly and irrepressibly red himself in a way that captivates his eyes before he can fully process the words "...Um."

Um?

... _Um_.

They stare at each other for a long few seconds, quiet and awkward. A vast array of emotions cross Magnus' face, so fast that he can only grasp brief flutters of them before they disappear entirely.

"Kalle," Magnus manages eventually, so quietly that he'd have to strain his ears to listen if he wasn't already entirely fixed on the sudden charge of the air in between them "...Can I ask you something?"

"Er," he says, and then inwardly winces - _well_ aware that that's probably the _worst_ thing to say after an awkward moment, followed by an emotionally charged question that is leaving him worried and confused and _hopeful_ and- "yes? I mean, depending on the question of course-"

"Are you...?" Magnus interrupts him, and then trails off, and then seems to gain steam again in the most nervous way that he's ever seen anybody gain steam in his life, "happy? I mean, with our relationship. But also in general. But mainly with our relationship?"

He stares for a long moment, stunned.

"...Kalle?"

"I," he says slowly, considering his words much as he has been known to consider a particularly difficult crime scene, "wasn't aware that we had a relationship, as such."

"Well," Magnus blusters - and he notes, in an absent second that leaves his heart fluttering afterwards, that the man looks absolutely _adorable_ when he's puffing himself up, "we don't, not really. Outside of being colleagues, of course. And friends, I hope."

"Definitely friends," he says quietly - still confused, still slightly reeling from that unexpectedly revealing thought. He met a couple on a case once, when he was just a young cop. They'd been together for years, and seemed stuck solid in the mutual grumpiness of their relationship. When he'd interviewed the woman she'd immediately launched into a long rant about her husband, only tangentially related to the crime that they'd both witnessed. But halfway through she mentioned a recent anniversary, a piece of jewellery he'd got her and the way he'd thoughtfully fastened it around her wrist, and it was like the clouds had suddenly cleared from her mind. Watching the two reunite, fall into each other’s arms like nothing harmful had ever been said between them, is still one of his most satisfying memories of being a police officer.

...This, somehow, feels like that. A sudden break of sunshine through the crowds, a realization that just can't be held back.

Magnus is staring straight ahead now, his eyes fixed on the road and his long fingers toying with the edge of his empty coffee cup. He seems nervous, almost disappointed. He seems crushed in a way that is far too familiar, from all his interactions with the oblivious Kurt Wallander and the sneering thing that lives inside his chest.

He slowly, but nowhere close to hesitantly, reaches his hand out. Places it over Magnus' free one and takes a deep breath "...Magnus?"

Magnus, both flatteringly and _terrifyingly_ , has frozen stock still at the simple touch of his hand. His chest keeps quickly rising and falling, rising and falling - he wonders, with his focus on it, if he's feeling quite alright himself, "what?"

But there's no time for that, it's not a sensible question. In his mind there are two types of worry, at least for a person like him - the kind that you come back to over and over again and feel more uncertain about every single time, and the kind that you come back to over and over again just to revisit the shiningly perfect certainty that waits underneath, "do you _want_ a relationship?"

And this, as he knows in his heart of hearts, is the second one. This has always been, and always will be, the second one.

Magnus remains frozen for a long moment, seemingly breathless with indecision. His eyes map the road outside, his chest rises and falls faster and faster, his pupils dart anywhere and everywhere with a frequency that would be disturbing if he wasn't so far down this path already...

And he turns, in one smooth moment, and _launches_ himself at him. A coil of limbs and a sudden pressure, a casting aside of coffee cups and a soft splatter of cold liquid, a clash of lips and tongues in the dark that just feels... Warm. Safe. Perfect in the way that so few things are.

"I take that as a yes?" He smiles when they finally break for air - his forehead resting against Magnus' forehead, their faces so close that he can taste the delicious huffs of air between them and drink deep from those bottomless eyes as much as he pleases.

" _Yes_ ," Magnus sighs, and then gives a breathless little laugh - a tinkling thing, that rises up between them and leaves him feeling somehow light and airy and perfectly protected in this little box between them, "yes. I just- never thought that you'd see me, in that way. Never thought that you'd care that much, even if you did. Never thought that you could be interested in someone like me, someone-"

Who wasn't Kurt.

But the thing about Kurt is, well, he's always been the first kind of worry. The kind that never got better, the kind that was always uncertain. He looked at him, and he saw the black hole of the present. Of desires unmet, and a continuation uncertain. He looks at Magnus, and... Somehow, impossibly, the worry that haunts him constantly goes away for a while. Fades to a whisper, and then even less. Bows under the weight of his sheer happiness, lets the light shine through again.

And he remembers that. Every single time, no matter what.

But Magnus, looking like Adonis and starlight rolled into one, is still ranting. And the anxiety is quiet, buried by the string that tugs between them. And this is not the time, "Magnus?"

"Mm?" As his one, _his_ one, pauses. Blinks at him with wide eyes, starts to smile just a little as if he can't believe the miracle of his existence.

"Shut up," as he leans forward again, short and perfectly, and fits their lips back together - one smooth push, that says absolutely everything that needs to be said.

There'll be time for thinking later. Time for thinking, and talking, and worrying, and growing apart, and letting the anxiety rule him, and telling the anxiety to go hang, and growing so close together again that their roots are entwined for the rest of their lives. But for now it's the middle of the night. They're in a cop car, on a desolate stretch of road. They're alone, in the middle of nowhere.

And there's only him, and Magnus, and Magnus' laughing lips.


End file.
